The importance of having user experience design skills are being felt by companies in the entire industry today as they see the world evolve and explode into an abundance of software systems.

A couple of decades ago when software was just an emerging concept – the focus of what made successful software was functionality or features. That was because, when any product-industry is seeing economics of scarcity, the product with the most features for the same price wins. Think about, e.g., the mp3-players from back in 2000 when the term "digital audio player" or didnt really exist.

But as each industry becomes more established, it hits a threshold of abundance – an area where the core features required to create a product become too easy to create or replicate. In such cases, user experience is one of the things that start to differentiate one product from another. Again, the ipod or iphone becomes a classic example here.

There are a number of IT companies within Islamabad who are already transitioning their processes and teams into a usability-focused disciplines, whose products are valued and heralded because of their attention to HCI, and whose teams must be a deep mix of fantastic engineers who also happen to have great aesthetic taste.

The problem is, that these companies arent really doing a good enough job of answer your questions or thoughts about usability.

So we’ve decided to bring all these companies from Islamabad into one room in front of you so you can ask the tough questions that you need answered to better understand the importance of usability. Here’s the panelists who’ll be there to answer your questions:

Osama A. Hashmi, CEO, CDF Software and founder of Green&White – their product has been largely lauded for its uniquely usable way of solving an age-old problem

Babar Khan – Country Manager, iKonami – ikonami’s flagship product "AT-Work" is the worlds largest single SAAS installation at the worlds fourth largest employer, and the company promotes the idea of "Common Sense Usability"

Kubair Shirazee, CEO, iKonami

Atif Mumtaz, co-founder, or Faisal Chohan, CEO Brightspyre – their products were accepted by the biggest blogs in the world and praised for their simplicity of use in comparison to competitors.

Murad Akhtar, CEO, TinTash – their company focuses on casual game development

Dr. Khalid Latif, Assistant Professor, NUST – His PhD and research focus is on semantic web and focuses on usability within his advanced courses at NUST.

This interactive session will be of a similar format to the "Startup Insiders" event series we started of old… but it will be followed-on by the showing of an interesting film "Helvetica" which showcases the importance of design in business.

The event is free to attend, but you’ll have to register at Facebook or here.

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